DEBT
The club received an ultimatum from its players, stating that they will not return unless they receive the amounts owed.
Published on January 9, 2025 at 4:42 pm
Botafogo team champion of the Libertadores Credit: Vítor Silva/Botafogo
Botafogo released a note in response to this Thursday (9). Under threat of not returning to the club next Tuesday (14), the athletes asked for payment of the debts that Fogão owes to its squad until the day before the first training session of the year.
In the note, the club states that Conmebol passed on the Libertadores title award to the CBF on December 20th. The Confederation, in turn, passed the amount to Botafogo on December 27, when the club’s SAF finance and administration team was on vacation.
Therefore, the club has committed to paying the prizes due within 20 working days after receiving the amounts, a period that does not exceed that given by the players.
Another issue concerns the payment of severance pay for members of the squad who left the club at the turn of the year. Regarding this, Botafogo stated that some of these players requested a 25% increase in the prize pool in the last days before the end of the season, without a contractual basis for this.
Therefore, the SAF would have denied the reconfiguration of what had already been agreed between the parties. “Today some of these same former players are promoting untruths in the media in an attempt to guarantee personal gain”, commented the note.
Regarding the statements made by these athletes, the club stated that it expects “the press to fulfill its role of containment and investigation before allowing journalists to be used for such purposes”.
“Botafogo is experiencing a unique sporting and institutional moment in its history and continues to make every effort to continue its path of victories”, concluded the club.
Increasingly, Botafogo’s debt to its players takes on greater proportions. This time, the squad threatened not to report for training if the payments owed to them by the club are not met by January 14th.
The players from Botafogo sent a message to Thairo Arruda, CEO of the club, demanding payment by the 13th, conditional on the re-presentation on the 14th. At the moment, Fogão owes the players the prizes for the Libertadores, in addition to having delayed amounts of 13º salary and vacation.
In addition to debts owed to those who could boycott training, payments are also required for players who already left the club at the turn of the year, but did not receive everything they should have due to their termination. On Botafogo’s side, the defense is that salary payments and other labor issues are up to date, leaving only bonuses still to be paid.
Initially, the amounts should have been paid by December 30th, but the date was postponed to last Tuesday, January 7th. Without paying, Botafogo set the 17th of this month as the new deadline (including for terminations), but the players charge the amount before the date.
Within the club, the view on the ultimatum given by the players is that the athletes’ managers would have influenced the decision to skip the re-presentation, according to Globo Esporte, as many of them have commissions and gloves still owed by the club to receive.
Next Tuesday’s re-presentation precedes the first rounds of the Campeonato Carioca, which will have the first rounds played by the black and white under-23 team. Thus, the vacation of the squad that played in the Intercontinental Cup was extended.
